“It has become far too frequent and common to use the Holocaust for sloganeering and I do hope that there will come a time when public figures will realise that using inappropriate and painful analogies to Hitler in order to score a political point and generate headlines are misguided and insensitive,” he said.

It follows an angry clash in Senate estimates yesterday when government minister Michaelia Cash bizarrely threatened to air rumours about young women who worked for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.